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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I Am Not My Own

“Stewardship is the act of organizing your life so that God can spend you.”
- Lynn A. Miller, Author

I love this quote! I first saw it this weekend on our church bulletin and can't stop thinking about it. It brings a new perspective on what giving is, why we give, and what our life as Christians is all about. If the One I follow gave His life for me while I was still actively sinning against Him, where is it that I think I follow Him? If His life was spent selflessly giving of Himself, why should I expect to live any other way? If the Father gave because of His great love for us, what might my life look like as I follow in His Son's footsteps?

Generosity. That's what my life will look like. I will give what I have received. I will organize my life in such a way that God can spend me as He wills. I will recognize something that will change my life: I am not my own.

When I said yes to God by receiving for myself the sacrifice of Christ's death on my behalf, I became God's possession. In Ephesians 1:13,14, Paul explains it like this, "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory."

If we are in Christ, we are God's possession, marked as His own. We are His, and He can do with us as He wills. No longer our own, we get our marching orders through the guidance of the Holy Spirit within, and the Spirit always leads us to love, to surrender, to give. And as we live this new life of selfless giving, we find that, as Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)

Let us organize our lives in such a way that God can spend us - now - any way He chooses. For we belong to Him.

His!Dr Mari

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

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